Jans Alzate-Morales performed his undergraduate studies, in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, at the University of Antioquia, Colombia (1995-2001). Afterwards, his doctoral studies in chemistry were conducted at the University of Chile, Chile (2002-2006), funded by a fellowship from the German Government granted through DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst).

The topic of his thesis was focused on the computational study of protein-ligand interactions in the CDK2/Cyclin system, which is directly related to cancer disease. During his PhD, he spent six months doing research in the group “Efectos del Medio”, Faculty of Physical Chemistry of the University of Valencia (Spain) and in the Department of Theory of Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin (Germany ).

In 2007, he was inserted in the Center for Bioinformatics and Molecular Simulation (CBSM), to continue his postdoctoral studies with a scholarship for Academy Insertion granted by the Chilean Government through PBCT (Bicentennial Program of Science and Technology) . In 2010 he was hired as a lecturer and in 2012 obtained a permanent position as Assistant Professor attached to CBSM, Faculty of Engineering, University of Talca.

The main area of ​​his research is focused on understanding the subtle phenomena that occur at the molecular level in the interaction protein-drug, protein-substrate recognition and enzymatic catalysis. To do so, he uses several computational tools such as molecular docking, molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry methods and hybrid QM / MM, among others.

“Fishing For Complements: Design Of Compounds That Simultaneously Interact With Monoaminergic Proteins And Nicotinic Receptors, Based On Similarities Between Their Ligand Binding Sites”, Proyecto FONDECYT Regular, 4 years, 2013, Associate Researcher.

“Insights Into The Structural Basis Of The Interactions Between Camp-Dependent Protein Kinase (PKA) And Its Substrates: Development Of Predictive Molecular Models And Testing In The Study Of The Interactions Between PKA And Potassium Channel Akt2”, Proyecto FONDECYT Regular, 3 years, 2013, Associate Researcher.

Julio Caballero studied B.Sc. in Chemistry at Universidad de La Habana, Cuba (1996-2001). His PhD stay was at Universidad de Talca, Chile, and was devoted to the study of differential potency of ATP-competitive protein kinase inhibitors using a group of molecular modeling methods. He got a permanent position at Universidad de Talca in 2012. At this moment, he is assistant professor at CBSM, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de Talca, and he is author of more than 70 papers and one book chapter in research area. His research team consists of one postdoctoral researcher, two PhD students, and two diploma students. His main research focuses on the study of biomolecular systems by using computational chemistry, bioinformatic tools and molecular modeling.

Research funding

Project FONDECYT Regular # 1130141 (2013-2015) ‘Insights into the structural basis of the interactions between cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) and its substrates. Development of predictive molecular models and testing in the study of the interactions between PKA and potassium channel AKT2’ (main researcher).

Wendy Gonzalez Diaz, PhD. is currently professor and director of Center for Bioinformatics and Molecular Simulation (CBSM), at Universidad de Talca. Her research team consists of 2 diploma students and one technician (Biochemist).

She has a FONDECYT grant project (2011-2013) for novel researchers and she has a postdoctoral position in University of Potsdam, Germany (2011-2012).

Her research field is Biophysics and Structural Bioinformatics. She is interested in the study of potassium channels.

In the field of education she works as Professor for Bioinformatics Engineering students in the University of Talca.

I use Biological Databases (Sequence, Structure and Literature) and High-Throughput Sequencing Technology Data as source of evidence to test hypothesis and create bioinformatic tools for biologists. My primary interest is repetitive (mobile) elements in genomes. In my Ph.D. I generated Hidden Markov Models (HMM) of Prokaryotic Transposase proteins to identify all 25 families in Bacteria and Archaea. Currently, my students and I have developed the correspondent models for eukaryotes. Aiming to better understand mobile elements, we have mapped the predictions derived from the eukaryote Transposase HMMs on the genomes of two related species of frogs, Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis. Contrary to humans, these amphibians happen to have a significant proportion of their genomes (>30%) enriched with mobile DNA sequences. The question is: What is their role in the regulation of genes and the evolution of genomes?

Line of research

Transport proteins are vital to enable and maintain a vast majority of cell processes, which enable plant growth, development and reproduction among others. My research focuses on the investigation of transport systems in biological membranes. The primary interest is the relation of structure and function of ion channels and ion transporters. For the examination of transport proteins, a set of experimental approaches in combination with computational approaches is used. Experimental biology involves molecular biology techniques, yeast expression and complementation systems, and electrophysiological approaches. Computational biology comprises the analysis of homology models and molecular dynamics simulation.